RESEARCH ARTICLE
Electrodermal activity patient simulator
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OPEN ACCESS
Citation: Geršak G, Drnovšek J (2020)
Electrodermal activity patient simulator. PLoS ONE
15(2): e0228949. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.
pone.0228949
Editor: Dominic Micklewright, University of Essex,
UNITED KINGDOM
Received: September 20, 2019
Accepted: January 26, 2020
Published: February 5, 2020
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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0228949
Copyright: © 2020 Geršak, Drnovšek. This is an
open access article distributed under the terms of
the Creative Commons Attribution License, which
permits unrestricted use, distribution, and
reproduction in any medium, provided the original
author and source are credited.
Data Availability Statement: All data files are
available from the Figshare database (DOI no. 10.
6084/m9.figshare.11551224).
Funding: The authors acknowledge the financial
support from the Slovenian Research Agency
(research core funding No. P2-0225). http://www.
PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0228949 February 5, 2020
Gregor Geršak ID*☯, Janko Drnovšek☯
University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Ljubljana, Slovenia
☯ These authors contributed equally to this work.
* gregor.gersak@fe.uni-lj.si
Abstract
Electrodermal activity (EDA) is an electrical property of the human skin, correlated with per-
son’s psychological arousal. Nowadays, different types of EDA measuring devices are used
in highly versatile fields–from research, health-care and education to entertainment industry.
But despite their universal use the quality of their measuring function (their accuracy) is
questioned or investigated very seldom. In this paper, we propose a concept of an EDA
patient simulator—a device enabling metrological testing of EDA devices by means of a var-
iable resistance. EDA simulator was designed based on a programmable light-controlled
resistor with a wide resistance range, capable of simulating skin conductance levels (SCL)
and responses (SCR) and was equipped with an artificial hand. The hand included electri-
cally conductive fingers for attachment of EDA device electrodes. A minimal set of tests for
evaluating an EDA device was identified, the simulator’s functionality discussed and some
testing results presented.
Introduction
Electrodermal activity (EDA) is an electrical property of the human skin dependent on
changes of sympathetic part of the autonomic nervous system. EDA of a person changes when
hers/his level of arousal changes [1]. Nowadays it is used with increasing regularity, because
industry and research institutions are interested in acquiring objective information of human
perception of products, services or even human arousal or emotions identification during cog-
nitive and mental tasks. The reason of EDA’s popularity is relative low cost of the measuring
devices, simplicity of their manufacturing and use, combined with relatively fast physiological
response.
In the most simplified version, electrodermal activity is a contact non-invasive measure of
human sweating, which could be a result of body thermal regulation processes or of a certain
psychological arousal level of the person. Nowadays, the most common assumption is that
when a person is psychologically aroused, excited or activated, hers/his EDA signal increases
[1–3], although there are also other opinions [4].
EDA can be monitored within controlled laboratory environments in static, sedentary posi-
tion (e.g. sitting at a computer) in controlled environmental conditions (e.g. air humidity and
temperature, vibration, noise, lightning) with correspondingly less disturbances, measuring
errors and unwanted moving artefacts. On the other hand, monitoring of EDA in real-life
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arrs.si/en/index.asp. The funders had no role in
study design, data collection and analysis, decision
to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing interests: The authors have declared
that no competing interests exist.
PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0228949 February 5, 2020
EDA simulator
conditions outside laboratory provides a more ecologically valid setting, but is much more
burdened by environmental conditions, moving artefacts, dynamic errors etc. [5,6].
In clinical settings and applied psychology EDA is often used for stress, pain and sleep stud-
ies [7–10]. It was used in studies of clinical conditions like schizophrenia, panic disorder, anxi-
ety, multiple sclerosis, attention-deficit hyperactivity-disorder (ADHD), autism, Alzheimer
[11–19]. EDA was used also in ICT (information and communications technology) and enter-
tainment [20–24], education [25,26] and food industry research [27,28].
In general, biomedical devices are clinically validated by means of a comparison with a ref-
erence device, both used on an adequately large population of human subjects. Involvement of
a large group of needed subjects and logistical, ethical and practical issues are the reason for
complexity and high cost of clinical validations. Therefore, other means of evaluation of
devices are envisaged, e.g. simplifications of comparison protocols, reduction of number of
participants. One of the possible solutions are patient simulators.
Patient simulators are devices substituting patients. They offer a controlled way of evalu-
ating biomedical measuring devices. A simulator is a device for imitating a physical phe-
nomenon and is used for testing reliability, robustness and accuracy of a measuring device.
Patient simulators are devices used for testing and/or calibrating biomedical devices, which
measure physiological parameters. Their primary function is to generate signals, equal or
similar to real physiological ones in order to test the measuring accuracy of devices measur-
ing these signals. A well-known example are blood pressure (BP) patient simulators [29–
31]. BP simulators are electromechanical devices, capable of generating air pressure pulses,
which are fed to BP monitor. The air pulses, which can have artificial or physiological
shapes are used to test the repeatability, stability and even accuracy of non-invasive BP
monitors. Similarly, patient simulators for ECG, EEG, heart-rate and pulse oximetry are
used [32,33].
An EDA simulator is a device capable of generating typical skin conductance (SC) wave-
forms, which facilitate metrological checks of any EDA measuring device in both static and
dynamic conditions. As always the case with any device equipped with measuring function,
also EDA devices are of different levels of metrological quality. I.e. their measuring error and
measuring uncertainty can be very diverse, and consequently their reliability more or less
questionable. In order to get reliable, accurate and repeatable measuring results, metrological
checks or tests of EDA devices should be performed regularly.
Electrodermal activity
EDA signal primarily contains two pieces of information–the level of the signal and the
response of the signal. Tonic, slowly changing part of the SC signal is named skin conductance
level (SCL). Fast phasic pulses are called electrodermal responses, or skin conductance
responses (SCR). SCL value indicates the level of psychological arousal of the subject, while the
number of SCRs are a measure of subject’s momentary arousal and represents pulses in skin
conductance signal (Fig 1). SCR occur where EDA amplitudes exceed a certain threshold in a
certain time period (e.g. pulses occurring less than 9 seconds after the beginning of the increase
and having amplitudes larger than 0.02 uS) [3,34]. Commonly SCRs are estimated after 0.05
Hz high pass filtering and employment of a response threshold of 0.01 to 0.05 uS [35]. Number
of SCR per minute is a measure of the subject’s arousal. As a rule-of-a-thumb, values of a cou-
ple of SCR per minute indicate the subject is in relaxed state (baseline) and values above 20
SCR/min indicate an aroused subject [1,34].
Typical values of raw EDA depend strongly on individuals and experimental situations and
can vary considerably, but usually skin conductance level (SCL) ranges up to a couple of tens
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 EDA simulator

Fig 1. Electrodermal activity with detected skin conductance responses (SCR) (marked with black dots).
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of microsiemens [1,3]. In terms of phasic skin conductance, SCR amplitudes can typically
range from the threshold to a maximum of around a couple of uS.

EDA devices
There are two general forms of EDA devices, based on two methods—endosomatic and exoso-
matic. Endosomatic method does not apply any external current, and exosomatic applies an
external current to the skin. Three main measuring methods can be identified: i) endosomatic
method, ii) AC exosomatic method (applying AC current) and iii) DC exosomatic method
(applying DC current via electrodes) [1].

Fig 2. Via electrodes (black) DC exosomatic measuring instrument applies a DC voltage of up to U = 1 V to the
skin. By measuring the ratio of applied voltage U and resulting current I skin conductance G can be calculated (G = I /
U).
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 EDA simulator

Fig 3. Typical raw EDA signal (solid line) of a participant during a mental task (dashed line).
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Exosomatic measurements by means of a DC current (Fig 2), represent the basis of today’s
most widely used instruments. They are predominantly used because of their simplicity, the
need for only two electrodes, and possibility of monitoring both tonic and phasic EDA signals.
They do, however, lack some advantages of endosomatic method (which is a very unobtrusive
method with no special amplifying and coupling systems needed) and AC exosomatic method
(no electrode polarization issues) [1,36]. There is a huge variety of EDA devices available (por-
table, battery powered, embedded or built-in in other settings (e.g. into a computer mouse or
steering wheel), with wet or dry electrodes, equipped with only SCL measurement function or
additional SCR detection built-in algorithm, logging function etc.).
Sampling frequency of a typical EDA device should be in the order of 10 Hz and above, but
this strongly depends on the signal processing the researcher wants to perform. If phasic skin
conductance response (SCR) and other fast changing events in electrodermal activity are
needed, the sampling rate should be at least 200 Hz, 1 kHz or even 2 kHz being the most com-
mon values with the desktop laboratory measuring systems [3,34]. Wearable and especially
wireless streaming systems usually have a lower acquisition rate (up to 32 Hz).
Typical acquired raw EDS signal is shown in Fig 3.

Testing of EDA devices

To ensure the reliable and accurate EDA measurement, one of the simplest tests a researcher
should perform before every measurement is static calibration test of the EDA measuring
equipment. By connecting the EDA device’s electrodes to a fixed resistor (e.g. 1% precision),
the resulting skin conductance can be quickly checked in static conditions (Fig 4).
In order to check the functionality and response of the EDA device a simple dynamic test
should be performed after the attachment of electrodes to the subject and adequate EDA signal
dynamics visually checked by using startle stimuli. Namely, deep breaths, a sudden sound (a
loud clap), slap on the inner lower arm or cheek, coughing, scratching, light pinching should

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 EDA simulator

Fig 4. Raw acquired EDA signal during testing of a dual sensor EDA device (two electrodes acquisition waveforms are represented by the white and red line).
After first 100 seconds EDA device was tested using a fixed resistor of 54 kΩ, corresponding to 18.5 uS (encircled).
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result in an increase of the SC level after a second or so. Note, that if such tests fail, even when
the EDA device works, the subject could be a non-responder (there are between 5% and 25%
of non-responders in normal population) [3,34].
For a more thorough test of the dynamics of EDA instrumentation, we are proposing a con-
cept of a EDA patient simulator, which can be used as a reliable and repeatable device for test-
ing the dynamic functionality and measuring reliability of a EDA device.

EDA patient simulator

Requirements of an EDA simulator
Based on EDA phenomena and our experience with skin conductance measuring methods,
some possible requirements of an EDA simulator were identified: i) metrologically accurate
output, ii) capability of static calibration of EDA devices (e.g. several fixed resistances for mea-
suring range 1 uS to 20 uS), iii) capability of dynamic evaluation of EDA devices (e.g. genera-
tion of SCL and SCR, generation of moving artefacts etc.), iv) simple intuitive user interface
(no specialized knowledge of EDA phenomena needed), v) portability (battery powered), vi)
suitable safety level (medical grade galvanic isolation), vii) a certain degree of automation (e.g.
fully automatic simulator with options of manually adjusting certain parameters), viii) possi-
bility of testing EDA devices with different electrode types (e.g. single-use, wet and dry elec-
trodes, shape and type of the electrodes, possibility of device-only testing (without
electrodes)).

EDA simulator design

In this study, a prototype of EDA simulator was designed as a variable resistor, capable of set-
ting the conductance levels of up to 20 uS (i.e. above 50 kΩ) with addition of pulses, corre-
sponding to SCR phasic pulses.
The variable resistor had to fulfil the following specifications: 0 to 500 kΩ range, fast time
response, galvanic isolation, and high electrical strength. During the designing and building
process several possibilities of variable resistors were checked; voltage-controlled resistor
(JFET or MOSFET transistor), temperature-controlled resistor (temperature sensor), force-
controlled resistor (force transducer), magnetically-controlled resistor (magnetoresistance),

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 EDA simulator

Fig 5. Skin conductance versus time–an example of an EDA simulator output. 2 uS electrodermal signal was generated, which increased to 7.2 uS with four
superpositioned 0.25 uS SCRs, occurring with 5/min frequency.
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programmable resistor (digital potentiometer), and light-controlled resistor (photoresistor,

photodiode, optocoupler). Due to an elegant fulfilment of the safety and electrical strength
requirement and general simplicity of use, in the final prototype the light-controlled resistance
was used. Variable current-controlled resistance was realized by means of an optocoupler—
increasing of current through photodiode increased the emitted light and in turn decreased
the resistance of the coupled photoresistor (i.e. increased the conductance of the resistor).
In order to check the feasibility and operation of the optocoupler concept, a prototype of
EDA simulator was built. The built prototype had an embedded 100 kΩ fixed resistor for static
calibration and could generate SCL signals of up to 20 uS and two different SCR amplitudes–
small amplitude (0.25 uS) and large amplitude (0.5 uS) (Fig 5). To test EDA device in a wider
range of possible psychological arousal levels, the prototype had also a SCR feature—occur-
rence frequency of SCR could be selected from 5/min, 10/min in 20/min, roughly correspond-
ing to a relaxed, activated and aroused person [1,34].
The main components of the simulator circuit were an LDR optocoupler (NSL-32SR2 by
Silonex), an amplification circuit based on LM358AN (by Texas Instruments) and a 32-bit
ARM microcontroller developing board (3.3 V Arduino Due SAM3X8E ARM cortex-M3 by
Arduino Inc.) (Fig 6). Using these, variable resistor could be set from 0.04 uS to 16 mS (25 MΩ
to 60 Ω). The SCL level and SCR amplitudes were set digitally using digital-to-analog output of
the Arduino board. Output signal was generated using two-dimensional waveform tables of
three EDA signal shapes: SCL signal, small-amplitude SCR signal and high-amplitude SCR
signal.
A plastic human hand model was used for EDA device’s electrodes attachment. Two fingers
were covered with electrically conductive metallized nylon fabric (Shieldex Zell by Statex)
plated with silver, copper and tin with surface resistivity of less than 0.02 Ω/U [37] ensuring a
reliable electrical contact for the electrodes of the EDA device (Fig 7). Such a set-up is appro-
priate for testing EDA devices for measuring skin conductance using two electrodes, e.g. on
two fingers. On the other hand, a number of different (usually low-cost) EDA devices

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 EDA simulator

Fig 6. EDA simulator circuit schematics.

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measuring skin conductance on the user’s wrists are used today. To test these, the simulator
has built-in EDA terminals, which can be connected to the device’s electrodes by simple leads.
One of the basic differences in the waveform of presented EDA simulator in comparison
with the real, physiological waveform of human skin is the shape of the time series (Fig 8).
Although the simulator waveform looks symmetric and quite artificial, we consider a simpli-
fied signal like the one on Fig 8 (right) suitable for the purpose of testing the functionality and
basic accuracy of EDA device. For more comprehensive evaluations, the physiology-based sig-
nals should be used.

Testing the functionality of simulator

Using the simulator’s built-in precision 100 kΩ resistor (equals 10 uS) a static calibration of a
low-cost (under 100 EUR) EDA device was performed (Fig 9). If the fixed resistor itself was
calibrated, using calibration by comparison method would allow determination of the

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 EDA simulator

Fig 7. (a) EDA simulator with active finger electrodes on index and middle fingers; (b) testing of an EDA device with its clamp electrodes attached to simulator.
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measuring error and estimating the uncertainty budget of the EDA device (for details on met-
rological calibration of EDA devices see [38,39]). After a certain transient time (typically under
0.5 s), time stability of the simulator was estimated by calculating the standard deviation of the
output and was in the order of 0.05 uS. Which suffices for the majority of applications using
EDA monitoring.
In addition to static calibration, dynamic evaluation of the low-cost EDA device was per-
formed. Reference signal of different amplitudes and different SCR pattern was generated by
the simulator (Figs 5 and 10). Maximal dynamic error and uncertainty of an EDA device was
calculated to estimate the accuracy of EDA device versus the simulator output. We tested a
number of different EDA devices and the errors and uncertainties were below 0.1 uS and 0.3
uS, respectively, error being difference between the EDA reading and simulator setting, and
the uncertainty calculated as geometrical sum of simulator’s uncertainty, repeatability and
reproducibility of the measurement, EDA device repeatability and resolution, resolution of
simulator (for details on dynamic evaluations of biomedical instrumentation see [29,38,39]).
In addition to classical (SCL measuring) EDA devices, the simulator’s performance was
tested also using an EDA device, equipped with an automated SCR detection function. Differ-
ent frequencies of occurrence of SCR pulses were set on simulator (Fig 10 shows the EDA
device acquisition waveform). In addition, EDA device’s SCR detection algorithm could be

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 EDA simulator

Fig 8. Schematics of real physiological waveform (left) and artificially generated output waveform of an EDA simulator (right).
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tested. Fig 11 shows raw signal of the EDA device acquired with simulator set to two different
amplitudes of the SCR. Tested EDA device’s automated SCR detection was set to a 0.3 uS
threshold and the water drops indicate the detected SCR (Fig 11).
Table 1 contains the performance of the EDA simulator regarding stability. If we define a
target uncertainty for a common EDA measuring device of approx. 0.1 uS, the results show,
that the built simulator is adequately stable to reliably check common EDA measuring devices.

Discussion and conclusions

Measurement of electrodermal activity is a rather simple measuring method using simple and
low-cost measuring instruments. It is more and more used in different areas of research, from
medicine, ergonomics, biomedical and control engineering, robotics and ergonomics, psy-
chology and education, sports, entertainment to social science and economics. But it is never
seriously doubted, in the sense of determining measuring accuracy and quality of measuring
result like in [38–40].

Fig 9. EDA device acquisition of skin conductance, generated by EDA simulator during static calibration. In time interval marked with dashed lines, EDA device
was measuring a fixed 100 kΩ (10 uS) resistor.
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 EDA simulator

Fig 10. EDA device acquisition of skin conductance, generated by EDA simulator. Simulator generated SCRs of different frequencies (5 SCR per min, 10 SCR per
min and 20 SCR per min).
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In this paper a concept of an EDA simulator for testing EDA devices is, to the best of our
knowledge, presented for the first time. EDA simulator is a device capable of generating artifi-
cial waveforms of electrical resistance, in part similar to physiological ones. The simulator’s
main purpose is evaluating the functionality and measuring quality of an EDA device. We pre-
sented the simulator’s design and basic functionality. Different levels of static EDA signal can
be set (i.e. different SCL level). In addition, SCR pulses can be generated, varying in amplitudes
and occurring frequency.
While the embedded optocoupler is an elegant solution for constructing a variable resistor,
at the same time it is also a major limitation of the proposed EDA simulator. Optocouplers are

Fig 11. EDA device acquisition of skin conductance, generated by EDA simulator. Simulator generated SCRs of different amplitudes (0.25 uS and 0.45 uS).
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 EDA simulator

Table 1. Stability of the EDA simulator output (all values in uS and measured within a 10 min interval).
Simulator settings Average value Standard deviation
frequency 5/min 4.93 0.091
frequency 10/min 9.94 0.082
frequency 20/min 19.96 0.080
SCL (fixed resistor 10 uS) 9.99 0.001
SCL (fixed resistor 4.5 uS) 4.53 0.001
small SCR amplitude 0.26 0.005
large SCR amplitude 0.45 0.005
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electronic elements not intended for precise operation and during our design, the optimal
optocoupler was selected from a batch of elements which had consistent resistance values
within the range. The inaccuracies resulted in a certain instability of shape and amplitudes of
the generated waveform (see pulses in Fig 11). In the process of dynamic evaluation, an addi-
tional simulator limitation is originating from the use of optocoupler—latency of up to 100
ms. The time constant is in the order of seconds (Fig 5), therefore test of EDA device should
only be performed after a transient time. Another error source could in principle be the opto-
couplers temperature dependence, which in our experiments was controlled by maintaining
stable laboratory environmental conditions.
EDA simulators main objective is to determine EDA device’s accuracy and functionality
(e.g. checking its algorithm for SCR detection). Using tests of different EDA devices (with dry
stainless steel and gold electrodes, clamp dry electrodes, wet Ag/AgCl electrodes, continuous
and intermittent measurements), the built EDA simulator was proven to represent a reliable
apparatus for quick tests and even thorough evaluations of any EDA device. Nevertheless, for
reliable electrodermal activity measurements, in addition to tests using the EDA simulator,
repeatability of an EDA devices should still be additionally evaluated using measurements on a
human subject (instructing actions like deep breaths, coughing, scratching, pinching which
should result in an increase of the SCL).
A very useful feature of the EDA simulator would be capability of testing several devices
simultaneously. This would allow for a fast check of numerous devices (e.g. for experiments in
education, where around 30 devices are worn by the pupils and they all need to be checked
periodically [41]). The current simulator design is not capable of providing stable resistance
values for two or more EDA devices, since the current they are feeding to the simulator’s fin-
gers interfered with each other measuring function and the simulator itself. The future ver-
sions of simulator design are planned to include this feature.
It has to be noted that the generated signal has an artificial, non-physiological shape, i.e. it
is only an approximation of real physiological electrodermal signal. Which in fact is true also
for the majority of other patient simulators (e.g. BP, oximetry) [29,30,32]. In the future, real
physiological waveforms could be acquired for a more genuine depiction of the dynamics of
the human skin. In principle, the future simulator should be able to generate a wider range of
EDA behaviours, e.g. moving artefacts, complex changes of both SCL and simultaneous SCR.

Author Contributions
Conceptualization: Gregor Geršak, Janko Drnovšek.
Investigation: Gregor Geršak.
Methodology: Gregor Geršak, Janko Drnovšek.

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 EDA simulator

Project administration: Gregor Geršak.

Visualization: Gregor Geršak.
Writing – original draft: Gregor Geršak, Janko Drnovšek.
Writing – review & editing: Gregor Geršak, Janko Drnovšek.

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